🚂 Track record

Daniel Rockenbach takes over as Rumo's interim chief executive today, but his stint could be a short one. Brazil's largest independent rail freight operator may soon have a new owner — and, one would assume, a new CEO.

Rumo's network runs some 14,000 kilometers across nine states, worked by roughly 1,200 locomotives and 33,000 wagons. The stretch that matters most is the Malha Norte (Northern Network), which carries 82% of everything Rumo moves: trains leave Rondonópolis in Mato Grosso loaded with soybeans, corn and fertilizer, cross into Mato Grosso do Sul, join the São Paulo network and finish at the Port of Santos...

Don’t miss out! Upgrade to unlock full access. The process takes only seconds with Apple Pay or Stripe. Become a member.

We’re here for readers who want to truly understand Brazil and Latin America — a region too often ignored or misrepresented by the international media.

Since 2017, our reporting has been powered by paid subscribers. They’re the reason we can keep a full-time team of journalists across Brazil and Argentina, delivering sharp, independent coverage every day.

If you value our work, subscribing is the best way to keep it going — and growing.

You're already a subscriber — which means you've made a choice. You decided that understanding Brazil, accurately and ahead of the headlines, was worth paying for. Thank you. That choice is the reason we exist.

Every contribution above your subscription goes directly into journalism: the reporters and editors on the ground in São Paulo, Brasília, and Rio who file what parachute correspondents and recycled-wire intelligence simply can't. It's the difference between covering 2026 and covering it the way it deserves to be covered.

If The Brazilian Report has earned a place in how you read the country, consider giving beyond what you already pay. Whatever the amount, it funds the work — and it keeps it independent.